Kiev lacks the manpower and necessary Western support, David Richards has said<\/p>\n
Ukraine has no chance of defeating Russia even with massive Western support because it lacks the necessary manpower and does not have NATO troops on the ground, a former UK chief of the Defense Staff has said.
\nIn an interview published on Saturday by The Independent, Field Marshal David Richards \u2013 who held his post from 2010 to 2013 and earlier commanded NATO forces in Afghanistan \u2013 accused Ukraine\u2019s backers of failing the country.
\nWestern countries, he argued, encouraged Kiev to fight, but they have \u201cnot given them the means to win.\u201d
\n\u201cMy view is that they would not win,\u201d even if Ukraine were given all the necessary resources, he said. \u201cThey haven\u2019t got the manpower.\u201d<\/p>\n
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According to Richards, the only scenario in which Ukraine could hope to win is a direct NATO intervention, \u201cwhich we won\u2019t do because Ukraine is not an existential issue for us.\u201d
\nHe added that while the West is \u201cin some sort of hybrid war\u201d with Russia, it is \u201cnot the same as a shooting war in which our soldiers are dying in large numbers.\u201d
\n\u201cUkraine is not an existential issue for us. It clearly is for the Russians, by the way,\u201d Richards said.
\nThe Ukrainian army has been on the back foot for months, with Russian forces making advances in Donbass and into Ukraine\u2019s Dnepropetrovsk Region. Russian officials have said that Ukraine would collapse within weeks if it were cut off from Western military support.
\nHowever, Russia has stated that it remains open to a diplomatic resolution of the conflict, provided its national security interests are taken into account, adding that a sustainable peace would require Ukraine to stay out of NATO, agree to demilitarization and denazification, and recognize the territorial realities on the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kiev lacks the manpower and necessary Western support, David Richards has said Ukraine has no chance of defeating Russia even with massive Western support because it lacks the necessary manpower…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t